2024-05-01 22:42:31
Kabul: Afghanistan held a trilateral meeting last week with two Central Asian countries, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. The meeting held in Kabul was attended by Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister Serik Zhumangarin, Turkmenistan’s Director General of Transport and Communications Agency Kammetkhan Chakayev and Afghan Commerce and Industry Minister Nuruddin Azizi. The main issue of this meeting was to discuss a new transport corridor for trade with India. At the meeting, representatives of Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan agreed to enhance transit and transportation infrastructure in Afghanistan.
Eager to do business with India
At the meeting, Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister Serik Zhumangarin stressed the need to calculate and restructure traffic flows, highlighting the upcoming infrastructure development initiative. The three parties also have the idea of connecting with India. This may be possible through Iran’s Chabahar port. “All this will help develop Turkmenistan’s infrastructure and our infrastructure in Bainu-Aktau-Bolashak,” he said.
All three countries will join INSTC
The three sides acknowledged that the eastern branch of the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC) has received new impetus to become an important route for transporting goods from Russia and Belarus through Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to Afghanistan, India and West Asia . After the talks, they agreed to establish a working group to implement the agreements already agreed upon among themselves. The Kazakhstan–Turkmenistan route is one of the branches of INSTC.
There will be no need for Pakistan
Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan need Pakistan to do land trade with India. Pakistan considers India as its biggest enemy since the beginning. For this reason, Pakistan has always tried to disrupt trade through its soil. The latest example of this was seen in the beginning of 2022 during the food grains sent from India to Afghanistan. But, now with the opening of the route to Iran’s Chabahar port, Central Asian countries will have no need of Pakistan.